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invention of the cotton gin
In 1794,inventor Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber. -
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Missouri compromise
The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slave and free. -
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Underground railroad
The Underground Railroad was the term used to describe a network of meeting places, secret routes, passageways and safe houses used by slaves in the U.S. to escape slave holding states to northern states and Canada. -
Nat Turner
Nathanial “Nat” Turner was a black American slave who led the only effective, sustained slave rebellion in U.S. history. Spreading terror throughout the white South, his action set off a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the education, movement, and assembly of slaves and stiffened proslavery, antiabolitionist convictions that persisted in that region until the American Civil War. -
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso proposed an American law to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War. The conflict over the Wilmot proviso was one of the major events leading to the American Civil War. -
uncle toms cabin is published
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is published. The novel sold 300,000 copies within three months and was so widely read that when President Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in 1862. -
Kansas Nebraska act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. -
brooks sumner event
Preston Brooks beats Charles Sumner with a cane. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts was an avowed Abolitionist and leader of the Republican Party. After the sack of Lawrence, on May 21, 1856, he gave a bitter speech in the Senate called "The Crime Against Kansas." -
lincoln douglas debates summary
The Lincoln–Douglas debates (also known as The Great Debates of 1858) were a series of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for the United States Senate from Illinois, and incumbent Senator Stephen Douglas, the Democratic Party candidate. -
John Browns raid on Harpers ferry
Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. -
election of 1860
United States presidential election of 1860, American presidential election held on Nov. 6, 1860, in which Republican Abraham Lincoln defeated Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, and Constitutional Union candidate John Bell. -
fort sumter is fired upon
Early in the morning of April 12, 1861, Confederate guns around the harbor opened fire on Fort Sumter. At 2:30pm on April 13th, Major Robert Anderson, garrison commander, surrendered the fort and was evacuated the next day. The Union would not recapture Fort Sumter for nearly four years.
